If Your Birthday is August 30th

 ...you share it with a pair of pitchers, who between them, have won more than 290 games! A Cardinal mainstay for the past decade, Adam Wainwright (above), is a two-time 20 game winner who has finished in the Top 3 of the National League Cy Young voting. Cliff Lee (below) has a Cy on his shelf. He won the AL Award in 2008 when he won 22 games for the Indians, including a pair of complete game shutouts. Unlike Wainwright, he was a friend of the moving companies, moving from Cleveland to Philadelphia, Seattle, Texas and then back to Philadelphia, where he pitched the final four seasons of an injury-shortened career.
Who else marches in our August 30th birthday parade?

  • Billy Burns, the speedy outfielder who's played for the Athletics and Royals.
  • Roberto Hernandez, the well traveled pitcher once known as Fausto Carmona, who was Lee's teammate for several seasons with the Indians.
  • Marlon Byrd, the well traveled outfielder who was Lee's teammate on the 2014 Phillies.
And we remember:
  • Tug McGraw, the effervescant reliever who divided his career between the Mets and Phillies, and pitched on each franchise's first-ever World Series champions: 1969 in Flushing and 1980 in Philadelphia.
  • Ted Williams, perhaps the greatest natural hitter in baseball history. Not only a hero on the field, but a military pilot who gave up 4-1/2 seasons at the peak of his career to serve during World War II and the Korean War. He remained in top form past the age of 40, winning the 1958 AL batting title, and going out on a high note: homering in the last at-bat of his career on September 28th, 1960.

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